Opinion and commentary on news, politics, culture, and policy impact.
The average cost of raising a child is over $245,000 – and that doesn’t cover college costs. That number comes from a report released Monday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It includes money spent on a child’s education, housing and food. But while $245,000 is the number dominating headlines (including – OK, OK —…
As a character noted in Tom Wolfe’s “The Bonfire of the Vanities,” a prosecutor could convince a grand jury to indict anything, even a ham sandwich. And while Texas Gov. Rick Perry isn’t a ham sandwich, he might as well be. Last Friday, a Texas grand jury returned a two-count indictment against Perry that even…
On July 29, reformers challenging the abuses of civil forfeiture laws gathered at The Heritage Foundation to discuss the pitfalls of forfeiture and the possibilities for reform. Keynoting the event was Representative Tim Walberg (R–MI), who introduced a civil forfeiture reform bill days before. Joining the congressman were acclaimed author and columnist Radley Balko and…
In a bizarre case of medieval barbarism fusing with 21st century technology and a dash of capitalism, the terrorist group Islamic State, which is rampaging across Syria and Iraq, has taken to the Internet with a new level of sophistication. In Iraq, the government shut down Twitter and Facebook only to find terrorists are now…
Consumer advocacy groups have long painted the payday loan industry – companies that provide extremely short-term credit – as evil and predatory. Now, the federal government has joined in. Operation Choke Point, which involves government regulators informing banks certain businesses are “high risk,” and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) exemplify the federal crusade against…
Make no mistake, Islamic State’s methodical march of savagery across the Middle East threatens more than the religious and ethnic minorities caught in its path. The United States and its allies, especially those in the region, have every reason to be concerned about the human cost of allowing Islamic State to roam freely. Any rational…
In an unprecedented letter, a majority of the federal government’s inspectors general (IGs) claim that the Obama administration is obstructing their investigations into government mismanagement and corruption. So much for President Obama’s claim that his would be the most transparent administration in history. And it truly IS unprecedented. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the…
We talk about taxes as a “burden” because they reduce the take-home pay of American workers, the profits of American businesses, and the purchasing power of American consumers. Over the past century, the overall federal tax burden steadily grew from about 5 percent of national income to almost 20 percent. Over the last decade, tax…
Aircraft from the USS George H.W. Bush have facilitated airstrikes on the Islamic State militants in Iraq since Aug. 8. Their goal is to protect American citizens and personnel in Iraq, and help the Yezidi religious minority hiding with little food and water in the Sinjar Mountains. The ship's Facebook page released an update and personal…
Thirty-three years ago this month, President Reagan picked up his executive signing pen and affixed his name to one of the most sweeping pieces of tax legislation in U.S. history: the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981. Rarely has any bill been more aptly named. The country had been pummeled for years at that point…
Attorney General Eric Holder suffered a huge loss last week in his war on election integrity. A federal judge refused to issue a preliminary injunction against North Carolina’s omnibus election reform law that includes voter ID, as well as measures such as the elimination of same-day registration. In three cases filed by the Justice Department,…
Five months have passed since the United Nations Commission of Inquiry (COI) on Human Rights in North Korea released its report, and still the U.S. has done little to hold North Korea accountable for its crimes against humanity. In the absence of executive action, Congress is taking matters into its own hands. The Senate’s version…
In recent months, the Obama Administration has come under increasing criticism for its overly optimistic Burma policy. The Administration has long claimed Burma as its foreign policy success story, but ongoing human rights violations and slow-going political reforms have called that into question. Secretary of State John Kerry’s recent visit to Burma for Association of…
Is justice delayed justice denied? For many in Cambodia, it is. Nearly 40 years after Khmer Rouge brutality commenced, two notorious Khmer Rouge leaders, Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan, were convicted of crimes against humanity and sentenced to life in prison. While their convictions are a step forward, many victims of Khmer Rouge brutality did…
President Barack Obama is reportedly considering using prosecutorial discretion to effectively legalize millions of illegal immigrants. He shouldn’t, for four reasons: 1. It would be an abuse of executive power for Obama to grant millions of illegal immigrants amnesty. The level of immigration should be determined democratically through our elected representatives, particularly Congress, which has…
Where does Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., stand on the issue of marriage? If you go to his own website to find out, you’ll come away empty-handed. Marriage isn’t a category in the list of topics under the “Issues” tab. When you simply search the word “marriage” on Paul’s site you get zero findings. Without a…
Did you know your tax dollars are financing unions? Thanks to what the federal government calls “official time,” government workers spent 2.4 million hours on union work in 2010. In fact, the Internal Revenue Service alone has 286 full-time employees who work exclusively for the National Treasury Employees Union. Check out the infographic below for…
The House Benghazi Select Committee started its investigative work this month. No fireworks yet, and that bothers the critics of the committee, who continue to contend that it is all a big waste of money. It is not. Understanding the massive policy failure that led to Benghazi is important, and furthermore, the Committee’s budget is…
Attempts to overly regulate private schools participating in school choice programs have a funny way of behaving. We have tried very different approaches to testing across private school choice programs. If we are to make full use of the laboratories of democracy, we must assess the results of new policies as a part of a…
Over the weekend in Ferguson, Mo., an unarmed 18-year-old black man named Michael Brown was shot and killed by a police officer. The incident is under investigation by the St. Louis County police department and reports indicate the FBI has opened a "civil rights investigation" of the shooting. Meanwhile, riots and angry protests have erupted for five consecutive days and…